I made this simple shoe rack for our laundry room to keep the shoes off the floor. You can find out how to make your own at not martha.

St. Vincent performs “These Days.”

This clip, wherein Sen. Pat Leahy questions President Bush’s former Political Director about her “oath to the President,” tells us a lot about the way the U.S. government has been run for the last six years.

I think it’s instructive about how President Bush’s aides and advisors have carried out their duties. The most destructive case of this, perhaps, being the departure from our laws and traditions regarding habeas corpus. The President’s legal advisors have given him the ability to detain anyone, anywhere, anytime, indefinitely, without the need to explain why.

The clip also brings to mind the President’s own oath of office. President Bush often speaks of his oath of office, saying that, as president his most solemn duty is to “protect the American people from harm.” But that just isn’t the case.

The Presidential oath of office, written in the Constitution, specifies that the President “shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.” It does not declare that the president’s most solemn duty is to protect the American people, but to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Terrorism can make it very tempting to surrender our liberties in order to feel a little safer. It’s not only up to the American people, but it’s also the President’s most solemn duty, to ensure that we do not.

I’ve made my first attempt at building an outdoor birdhouse. There were a few issues to deal with that I didn’t have to contend with when I built my other birdhouses.

First, it needs to be able to keep out the rain. So I made sure the roof was at a 45º angle so that I would be able to simply overlap the two roof pieces and then seal up the tiny cracks with silicone seal.

Second, if any birds do choose to make this their home, I need to be able to clean it out during the slow season (winter). So I put a little door in the back for easy access.

And finally, it had to be mounted somewhere. So I put up an eight-foot pole for it. But the birdhouse had such a wide base that I wanted extra support, so I cut four little support arms out of wooden garden stakes and drilled them to the pole.

Click the picture above to see a few more photos.

Click the image above to see a small gallery of the garden in summer. Now with notes!